Now Hiring
by Jade Eclipse
Summary: Connor meets his new recruits: one is blue another is a lunatic. Neither one can file, type, answer the phone, or brew coffee. [2nd in a series]


Now Hiring

Summary: Connor meets his new recruits: one is blue; another is a lunatic. Neither one can file, type, answer the phone, or brew coffee. 2nd in a series

Disclaimer: I own nothing except Garrett Dustin, who shall remain fully in my custody. Fully. I am willing to fight for him.

Well… it has achieved story-status. What can I say? I felt like writing a bit of plot. And I got the most _wonderful_ encouragement in the world- I love you guys; I really, really do. I don't know how many of these there will be, depending on my patience, but thank you very much for your support!

My sincere apologies for the writing, though… I've been sleep deprived lately. Hopefully the ending can be forgiven, along with the other things I'm not too happy about. Still, I give it credit for being… mind-bogglingly long compared to any of my other stories.

This directly follows my story The Immortal Angel Investigations, but there's no real need to read that first. It's like a prologue. Suffice to say Connor is continuing the family business, nearly six years after Not Fade Away, and that's all you need to know. All appearing characters have had several years to change and my creative license took a running start with certain characters featured here. I hope you find these changes believable, given the time gap. I tried to further blur the line between Illyria and Fred without loosing too much of what we love about her character, and I can't tell if I pulled it off right…

Also, at one point there is mention of Slayers. In my mind, there is no Slayer Cavalry in Not Fade Away; the final battle was Angel's and that's the way I prefer it. I know it's a popular theory, but bear with me.

**Sorry for the delay on this.** I've had it finished for quite a while, but my internet browser became inexplicably incompatible with after working perfectly for all these years, and my only source for posting has been other computers. My apologies. The next one will be up much quicker, I promise, provided I can get to a computer soon.

--------

The first few days of business at the new Angel Investigations had been blisteringly dull. Connor hated to admit it, but he was lost in this job. He had no contact to the Powers That Be, no source of information, no clients… the most he ever did to help the general populace was dust a few vampires and lob off the head of the occasional demon he ran across when he wandered nightly around the more evil-infested parts of the city. Maybe he really wasn't cut out to follow in his father's metaphorical footsteps. Maybe he would have been better off with the example set by his _human_ father- a normal life with a normal job instead of letting his college degree fester somewhere in the background. It wouldn't be long before he couldn't pay to keep the hotel, and then it would all be gone. One boy, even the impossible child of two vampires, couldn't hold together the celebrated agency alone. Even if he did get a client, he wasn't sure he could manage without being able to read the books, work the spells, or make the plans.

"This sucks," he muttered into the reheated Chinese takeout he was swirling around with his fork, leaning once again on the reception counter. He was going to lose the agency, he knew it, and felt like a dreadful failure for it. He couldn't even keep the thing afloat for a month, which was absolutely nothing compared to the years it had been open before. He was eventually going to have to give up on the whole idea.

The Powers, however, had different things in mind. All of a sudden the doors burst open, rather dramatically slamming back on their hinges, and Connor jerked up from his slouch just in time to see a leather-clad, blue-haired woman storm in, walking down the steps and saying, "I will assist you." She left no room to be questioned; her deep tone was as regal and commanding as ever. She reached the middle of the foyer and turned to face him, arms folded over her scarlet stomach.

For a minute, he gaped at her. He had met her the first time he visited Wolfram and Hart, if only briefly, and her name eluded him at the moment. She had not been forgotten, though. Her features were memorable enough. She had the same red leather suit clinging to her skin, blue striped in her hair and coloring her pale flesh. Her icy eyes were fixed on him intensely. She didn't seem to have aged, but he wasn't sure if this meant she was immortal or if the years simply hadn't changed her very much. "Uh…" he stuttered. "Uh, okay… you- you wanna work for me?"

"I will work _with_ you," she corrected imperiously, chin coming up at a haughty angle.

"Okay. Um… I'm Connor Reilly." The introduction was almost automatic, since he wasn't sure she remembered his name, either. He leaned over the counter and held out his hand. She looked down at it with disdain.

"This is that maudlin tradition of contact when two humans first meet, is it not?" she asked. He started to retract his hand, but then she came forward unexpectedly and caught it with her own. She shook a bit too energetically, and seemed determined to squeeze his fingers all into one. When she let him go, there were red marks from her grip and his arm felt rather elastic.

He waved his hand about for a bit to return some of the feeling. "Nice to meet you, um… Sorry, what's your name again?"

"I am Illyria," she said. She registered his reaction, or rather, the complete lack of one, and her head tilted to one side in an almost canine expression of inquiry. "You have not heard of me." Her tone became quiet, more subdued. "No one in this world has heard of me. They do not exalt at my presence, they do not quiver in fear or sing praises in supplication to my prowess. I am no one to them, as anonymous as any of these worthless mortals. It is humbling."

"Right. Well… I guess you work here now. So, is there anyway I can contact you in case of emergency? A cell phone, maybe? And I'd like to know your address, too, just to be safe. You never know what hours demons keep."

"I will stay here," Illyria decided. "I will keep the room upstairs." She turned around and pointed at the upper level. "If you walk up the stairs and take a left, it is the far room. The walls are white. That is where I will be. It was the Burkle girl's cave when she first came here."

"The Burkle…? Oh. Fred." Connor had not encountered Illyria since their introduction, which was before the Orlon Window had been broken. He hadn't noticed the obvious resemblance, and though he did find out what happened it had still slipped past him. He remembered Fred; she had been nice to him (excluding the one incident with a taser) during the three months when Angel was on his deep-sea retreat. "Yeah, that's fine. The room has some furniture- a bed and stuff, I mean. And it's a pretty big room. Though, I don't think you'd have much luggage. Of course not."

"I have photographs," Illyria declared.

"Oh." He was having incredible difficulty with this conversation.

"They sadden me, but still I keep them. What business will we be attending to here?"

"Well, we just opened, so not much yet. Mostly we'll be fighting demons, vampires. Anything that causes trouble, we'll deal with. I figure more major things will start turning up in a few weeks. Meanwhile, we wait for clients. Do you know how to use a computer, or a telephone?" Her blank stare was answer enough. "I'm sure we'll have something to do soon enough."

"I will wait," she decided, and sat down on the sofa. And she did wait, while Connor continued eating his Chinese. She didn't make a sound and deterred all attempts at conversation with simple silence and the most unresponsive of gestures. Her eyes remained fixed on him the entire time. She had lacked purpose for a while, tired of killing vampires and living in anonymity, and she was waiting for this mortal to return the much more preferable lifestyle she had known for her brief time at Wolfram and Hart. Her staring, however, was making him nervous and uncomfortable. When the phone rang, he practically lunged across the counter at it.

"Angel Investigations, we help the helpless!" he said into the receiver, maybe a bit too happily. Illyria could just pick up the tinny voice responding. "Who? Margaret?" Connor asked. "No, there's no Margaret here. But we can help you find her! Oh. Oh. Well... maybe you have some other problem you'd like us to solve? We work around the clock at very low charge! We'll even take care of rats in the basement, if you have any, even if they aren't demon rats. No, wait-!" He sighed and placed the receiver back in its cradle and gave Illyria a guilty look. "Wrong number," he told her. He had just been so eager at the prospect of getting a case and being allowed to actually _help_ someone. He sighed and looked at his watch. They had about three hours until sunset, and until then there would be nothing worth fighting on the streets of L.A. How, exactly, did one go about wasting three hours with an ex-god? "If you want, we can go see what we can find in the sewers. They smell, but sometimes there's vamps or demons hiding out there."

Illyria nodded curtly and rose. "That is agreeable."

"Good." He made his way over to the cabinet and opened it, selecting an axe for himself. "Do you want a weapon? Sword, crossbow, maybe?"

"I have no need for weapons," she said. "I desire to kill things."

"And see," he said, ushering her towards the sewer access, "there are always plenty of things to kill in L.A."

–––

By the time they got back, it was just a few hours before dawn and Connor was mourning the loss of his axe, which had been corroded through by the acidic purple blood of a nasty demon he and Illyria had chased down through several city blocks. Connor was sporting a few new bruises from that encounter and Illyria was slightly favoring her left leg, although she hid her injury well. After dispatching several vampires and the demon, the two had respect for each other's skills in battle. Illyria had made a brief comment on the subject, an offhand note that, "You fight well," as if informing him of the weather instead of paying him a compliment. She had actually sounded a little angry about it.

"That was a pretty cool thing you did to that one vampire," Connor was saying as they entered the hotel. He made a twisting motion with his hands, indicating the way Illyria had decapitated one of her opponents. "I swear that one guy had hair down to _here_. And all those tattoos… I kinda think we just dusted a rock band."

"These are puerile enemies. Half-breeds are as common as oxygen. They are dirt. They leech and spread, but they are the basest forms. Our talent exceeds them; we ought to be fighting a worthy opponent, something that would present a challenge to our skills. Vampires are brittle and weak."

"Yeah, but… they still kill people. Besides, that demon was pretty tough." Connor wondered what kind of demon it had been, and entertained the idea of going through a few boxes of unpacked books in search of something matching the bulky appearance.

"I once battled a dragon in this city. That was an adversary worthy of my efforts, not these sniveling parodies of demons. They have no concept of what true supremacy is."

"A dragon, huh? I'll keep an eye out for one of those. I see one, you're the first person I'll tell about it." He gave her a winning smile, and for a minute he almost expected the blue mask to crack enough to allow her to smile back. Her facial muscles didn't even twitch in response. He turned away and kicked off his shoes, off into a corner with the muddy laces still tied.

"You exhibit signs of exhaustion," Illyria noted. "Your shoulders slouch and you move slowly. Your body requires rest."

"Long day. Do you? I mean, do you ever need to sleep?"

Before she answered, the doors opened once more and distracted his attention. This intruder used none of Illyria's force to mark her entrance, instead poking her head over the threshold hand entering timidly, peering around at the lobby with shy but undisguised interest. She was about in her forties, a wiry woman with hardly any flesh on her bones, her long face framed by limp blonde hair. She wore jeans and an oversized gray sweatshirt that bunched up around her waist, the sleeves forced back past her elbows. The unmistakable purple shadow of a bruise was beginning to form along her hollow cheekbone, encompassing nearly the entire side of her face. Her mascara had left smudges around her huge green eyes, adding to the impression of a serious beating by imitating a black eye.

"H-hello?" she posed tentatively, not seeing the pair in the corner at first.

"Hi," Connor called. The woman spun towards them, and upon catching sight of Illyria let out an involuntary gasp, backing up a step and covering her mouth with her hand. "No, no, she's okay. It's just, um…" _she used to be a god, but now she inhabits the body of the woman she killed._ "She's my…" _associate and/or employee, but she refuses to work for me._ His assurances were cut short trying to describe Illyria accurately, and he settled for a friendly, "Can we help you?"

The woman swallowed several times and focused on Connor instead of the abnormal, blue-tinged alternative. Talking to an ordinary person evidently allowed her to ignore the former deity. "My name is Sharon Kastel. I've gone to three other agencies, but none of them were willing to take my case. They thought I was crazy. I guess you have more experience with… weird stuff like this." To her credit, she did try valiantly to keep from looking at Illyria at this point.

"We specialize in weird stuff. What kind, exactly?"

"I live about twenty minutes from here. It's a decent part of town, not much of a crime rate or anything. We live on the upper floor of a two-flat. Downstairs there's a bunch of guys, nice people for the most part. They never bothered my family before, even though my husband always thought they were up to no good. To be honest, we hardly ever saw them. I… I guess they belong to some kind of freakish cult, because last night all this chanting started, and there were flashes of light… and this hum under it all, you know? My daughter was studying for an exam, and so I went down to ask them to be quiet. I brought my husband's gun, because you never can tell with cults, you know? So I went down and knocked on the door, and instead of a person this… this _thing_ answered. He was all… blue and disfigured, and he was wearing these robes… God, I know how this sounds. And behind him there was all this light. He had a knife in his hand, and I guess I panicked… I shot at him, and I swear it hit him, but he just kept coming at me like nothing happened. He punched me…" Her fingers drifted up to the bruise and she bit her lip. "And I shot him again and just ran upstairs. I took my daughter to a motel a couple of blocks away. I called my husband home from work, I was so afraid of those… whatever they were. I went to the police, of course, but they didn't believe me. I'm not sure _I_ believe it. And I guess this was my last resort. Something has to be done. I can pay you; I just want them all gone. I shouldn't have to crawl down the fire escape because I'm so afraid of something living in my _home_."

"Good thing you came to us," Connor said to the distraught woman. "We'll take care of it, don't worry. What do you think, Lyri? Swords good for demonic priests?" He turned back to the client. "Mrs. Kastel, could you please write down your address? We'll have this cleared up in no time. Trust me, I've heard about cases that were a lot stranger. We'll handle this, no problem." He tried out a heartening smile and she returned it gratefully.

Five minutes later, he was in his car (a convertible, black, because apparently some tastes were just genetic) with a reticent Illyria, giddy over the prospect of his first case. This was new and exiting and he was aware that this was what he was meant to be doing; this was his destiny as much as it had been his vampire father's. Illyria didn't seem to share his delight, sitting straight-backed in her seat and blatantly refusing to wear a safety belt. She had not spoken since the moment the woman entered the hotel, choosing to let the human deal with the situation, but now she announced, "We know nothing of the cult this woman has sent us to defeat."

"Beheading usually works," Connor said.

"I disapprove of your manner of working. You formulate no plans, procure no information, and rush into the fray without assessing any other possibilities."

"Hey… this is only our first case, you know. Besides, most of the books are in Latin. I don't suppose… Do you read Latin?"

"I existed before language. All communication was through warfare. We spoke with our power, and either conquered or bowed down. The one with the greatest roar was king, and we had no need to converse as your species does, over trivialities and pleasantries with no definite meaning. No. I do not speak Latin."

"Oh, um… yeah, sure. Look, I'll find a translated version of all this stuff eventually. Until then… beheading usually works." He turned left onto a narrow street and parked uphill in front of a two-flat on the corner of the block. He glanced at the address in his hand and back up at the dark, quiet building. "It seems kind of calm for… a crazy demon cult living inside. Wasn't there supposed to be chanting, a light show? Well, let's go scope it out." He hopped out without unlatching the door, whereas Illyria rose gracefully and took the more appropriate means of exit. He gathered up a sword and crossbow while she once again elected to go unarmed.

They took about five steps in the direction of the entrance when a shape came hurtling through the first-floor window and landed facedown on the grass with a thud, covered in a heavy brown robe. Connor hurried over to the figure, grabbing a handful of the starchy fabric adorning it and rolling it onto its back. Its blue head lolled to one side, all indigo skin stretched over a malformed, bulging skull, colorless eyes gaping into the sky and mouth opened to reveal a forked black tongue and jagged teeth. "I guess we're late," Connor muttered. "All right, Illyria, come on."

He bounded up the stone steps and over the threshold without pause, the front door already flattened. He was greeted with a cramped hallway and a set of stairs leading upwards. Illyria hadn't hesitated to take in the sights and was already past him, moving into a connected room where the faint sounds of a fistfight were now audible. He raced after her and was almost immediately assaulted by another blue demon in a matching robe. He ducked a swing at his head and used the wall for balance as he kicked the demon in the gut and then sprang forward to bury his sword in the place where the guy's heart was supposed to be. Instead of flopping over, the demon swung again, this time catching Connor's jaw with bony knuckles. The force behind the blow caused Connor's head to snap to one side. He gave a sharp pull on the sword, jumped back a step, and cleanly severed the demon's neck in half.

As usual, beheading worked, though not without an excess of orange blood.

Granted enough of a reprieve to look around, Connor noticed without surprise that Illyria was handling her battle just fine. In the back corner was another demon getting pounded to a pulp by a dark-haired girl he didn't recognize, but to his left one demon had latched onto a man's throat and was determinedly not letting go, although the man was turning a most unnatural shade of violet. Connor headed in that direction, ducking a cult member who aimed a flying tackle at him. The errant tackle carried the blue creature into a ceremonial alter, complete with candles, and it went up in flames, sufficiently dealt with.

Reaching the asphyxiating man and his attacker, Connor sliced the demon's head off before it even had time to turn in his direction. The man managed to choke something unintelligible out, and then he sank, boneless, down the wall to cough and gasp for air. "Are you all right?" Connor asked. Then his arms were seized from behind and pinned in a grip like a vice. The sword dropped from his fingers and clattered against the floor. He jerked his head backwards, felt it connect with a satisfying crunch. His arms were released, but it was only so that his captor could deliver a strike to the back of his skull, knocking him forward. He tripped over the man's legs and went sprawling, but he flipped back up and retaliated with a flurry of kicks and punches. Before he could finish off his enemy, the dark-haired girl got out of the corner and launched herself at his opponent with a furious scream, her legs wrapped around his torso, bent over his shoulders with her fingers gouging at his eyes with ferocity even Connor was taken aback to witness. The demon back-pedaled and slammed her against the wall. She let go on instinct, and Connor stepped forward to cleanly behead the demon.

He glanced around and was surprised to see that Illyria and the girl had already taken care of the rest. The remnants of the cult were scattered about the hardwood floors, now completely ruined by the orange substance they bled. Illyria and Connor had gone for quick kills, but the few that had fallen victim to the girl were missing limbs and had deep cuts in addition to being decapitated. She was now staring at him, shifting her weight back and forth from either foot and occasionally clenching her hands into fists, trying to decide whether or not he was something else to kill.

She didn't look particularly dangerous; she had a pretty face with liquid black eyes and glossy waves of dark hair now matted with demon blood. Her features were marred by orange lines painting her skin like tribal war paint, and the same blood covered her clothes- an innocent reddish-pink top and gray pants that in no way hinted at her apparent bloodlust. Her breathing was becoming quick and panicked, but when the slumped man started coughing again all her attention was instantly directed at him. She dropped to her knees and tugged beseechingly at his arm.

"Oh, no, thank you, I'm _fine_," the man growled, his voice raspy but still conveying his sarcasm perfectly. "I was only getting _strangled_, and I only would have been _dead_ in a few more seconds. But of course there wasn't any need to interrupt your fun to show any interest- still, no worries, I'm all right now, and thank goodness you enjoyed mutilating all the demons."

She ducked her head and hid her face behind a curtain of her dark hair, whispering, "Sorry," in a truly repentant tone. The man gave her an indulging smile and pushed himself up.

"I survived." He glanced at Connor and said, "I think I owe you my life. How did you know the Ritual of Grathfernok was tonight?"

"Grathfernok?" Connor echoed. "We didn't. Um… neighbor upstairs complained. What's this ritual?"

"Trypilunn demons. They worship Grathfernok, who likes to eat people, generally by the dozen. Not a pleasant fellow. They were trying to raise him tonight, because he gives them tremendous power. If you came tomorrow night instead of today, these guys would have had skin like iron and super strength. I heard about it from one of my contacts. Thanks for the rescue, by the way." He extended his hand, which Connor shook.

"Connor Reilly, and this is Illyria. We run Angel Investigations, a private detective agency that specializes in demons and stuff."

"Are you kidding? I thought that closed down years ago! Everyone's heard of it, of course. It's a legend where we come from… If you don't mind me asking, what _is_ she, exactly?" He peered at Illyria with a clearly academic curiosity.

Illyria drew herself up to full height and met his gaze levelly, aware that she was on display. "I am an Old One, a king of this world before the oceans formed, before time had laws. Before humanity even began to crawl, I made the world shiver beneath my feet. Mountains bowed down to me; the wind stilled in my presence. Then I was reduced to this, a form in a shell with my powers stripped away. I am left with my strengths depleted, as well as a fondness for humanity and the most incessant craving for an idiotic concoction of meat and vegetables stuffed between a breaded crust."

Connor bit his lip to keep from laughing at the man's perplexed, startled expression following this short speech. "So," he said, his mirth readily apparent in his voice even though he tried to disguise it, "what about _her_? She's hardly normal, either." He nodded in the direction of the dark-haired girl.

"Oh, Dana? Dana's… Dana's a Slayer."

"Really?" Connor asked, looking at the girl with renewed interest. The only Slayer he had ever met was Faith, and even that encounter only existed in his mind. This girl was no Faith, lacking the sultry attitude and tangible confidence. Now that her bought of viciousness was over, she was standing back, arms wrapped around herself and eyes darting, expecting to be victimized in spite of her strength and abilities. "So you're a Watcher?"

The man didn't fit the profile very well. He wasn't more than five years older than his charge, and the faint inflection in his voice hinted at Scottish roots rather than British. His attire consisted of jeans, a white shirt, and a frayed brown jacket instead of the stereotypical tweed. His skin was tanned to bronze, his features all sharp lines except for almond-shaped green eyes and unkempt brown hair. The shadow of a goatee was another thing that didn't fit with Connor's idea of a normal Watcher. Still, he nodded in response to the question. "In the most literal sense of the word," he said. "Dana does what she wants and I get to tag along, basically. Occasionally she follows my advice, but only if it ends in a fight… which was the case here. Garrett Dustin."

"Huh?"

"The introduction before was a little one-sided. My name's Dustin." His Slayer grabbed his shoulder and hauled him back a couple of steps, interrupting his conversation with Connor.

"We should go," the girl hissed, not managing to keep her voice quiet enough that it didn't reach everyone in the room, even though the conversation was clearly meant only for her Watcher.

"Why, is something wrong?"

She shot a distrustful look at Connor and Illyria and confided, "He smells like dust. But he doesn't drink blood, so I can't stake him…"

"No, that would be bad," Dustin agreed.

Illyria scoffed, "_Slayers_. So much was said about them. They were praised for their power, their skill. To your kind they are warriors, noble and mighty. Yet when Winifred lay dying, the Slayers and their ilk denied the pleas for help directed at them. They refused to assist in the battle against the Circle of the Black Thorn. They are warriors who abandon their allies, unfit to the honor bestowed upon them." She frowned, inclined her head again. "There was a time when this would not bother me."

"She's only one of them, not the whole team," Connor reminded his colleague. Dana began pacing back and forth, running her hands through her hair. "She fights pretty good. Without all that…" He made a wild gesture with his hands that completely failed to describe what he was trying to say.

"Gratuitous maiming?" Dustin filled in with a wry grin.

Suddenly the Slayer stepped around Dustin and came forward, earnest eyes fixed on Connor. The innocent expression was obliterated by the streaks of blood striped across her face. "We can help. We- we'll stay here. Mr. Giles doesn't need us back in England, and we'd only get assigned to Cleveland… I hate the Hellmouth. We could stay here, right, Garry, and help them? Los Angeles needs it; there's always evil things here."

"Two seconds ago you wanted to stake him."

Dana shrugged apologetically. "Relapse. You know."

"I think you're still relapsing, then. You're the one with the loyalties back overseas. If you want to stay, I'm fine, but it took a lot to get you to _leave_ headquarters in the first place. You'll fight me over this tomorrow."

"Maybe. But we can _help_. You know we really don't get to anywhere else. If we stay, we can actually be a part of the fight and-"

"It is not your decision," Illyria interrupted. "We have not said that we would have you." To Connor, she said, "You will lead them if they ally themselves with us. If you have them I will abide, but I caution against allowing the green-eyed one to assist us. The female has power, but humans do not belong in this war. They are weaker than even a common vampire, and only whither and die if they attempt battle."

"Hey, wait, let's not write that obituary just yet," Dustin protested. "As long as humans are the ones getting killed out there, I say we can fight if we want. Well?"

And suddenly, everyone was looking at Connor to decide. He said, "Well, most of what we'll be doing other than killing things is your basic office scene. Either of you good with a computer, maybe filing some things, making coffee, answering the phone?"

"She spent most of her time in an insane asylum and I'm a Watcher," Dustin replied.

"An insane asylum?" Connor repeated, giving Dana an alarmed glance.

"She's better now."

"Yeah, okay… do you speak Latin at all?"

Dustin shrugged. "Standard for Watchers is learning moldy languages. I can get the general gist of something if you make me read it."

"Good. You're hired. Our office is the Hyperion Hotel, do you know where that is?" Dustin nodded. "We don't have any strict hours yet, so just show up sometime tomorrow and we'll hope for a case. We can pay you, just not very well."

"That's fine." To his Slayer, Dustin added, "Easiest job interview in the world."

–––

"I am curious," Illyria said as Connor trudged up the hotel stairs towards his room. "I have joined the battle and continue to fight, but I still do not understand why."

"Why we fight?" Connor asked. "To make the world a better place." A tremendous yawn slurred the last words together and made his eyes sting. "That a good enough reason for you?"

"You are Angel's son. You share his blood. Is this the reason you continue what he began?"

He stopped walking up the stairs and turned to face her. She had halted a few steps behind him, waiting expectantly for an answer. "You know about that, huh?"

"When the sorcerer's bauble shattered, I was standing nearby. More of the Burkle girl's memories poured into me, memories not even she was aware of when she died. Yes, I know what you truly are, and what you were in the time before. Is this why you fight? Does this shape your purpose?"

"I guess it helps that my parents were both murderous vampires and I'm a freak of… super-nature? So, yeah, part of it's about Angel. He fought the good fight. And that's mostly what this is about, right? The good fight. This is probably what I should have been doing before, instead of, you know, trying to kill my dad and blow up malls."

Illyria cocked her head. "I do not remember this incident with a mall."

"It was pretty crazy. Look, I'm gonna get some sleep. I was tired _before_ the demon cult thing. We'll call Mrs. Kastel in the morning and let her know we took care of everything. Wake me up if we get another client." He continued on to room 312, leaving Illyria behind without a second glance. For the second time that day he kicked off his shoes, but this time he was finally able to crawl into bed, collapsing on top of the covers without bothering to change his clothes. He felt it had been a successful day- Angel Investigations was now staffed, he had successfully completed his first case, and his sleeping hours were already changing to a more nocturnal lifestyle. He was exhausted beyond belief, true, but the sun would soon be rising on a new day in Los Angeles and Angel Investigations was officially open for business.


End file.
